I presume that I could write an entire library of personal
reminiscences relative to the eminent people with whom I have been
thrown during a busy life, but I hate to do it, because I always
regarded such things as sacred from the vulgar eye, and I felt bound to
respect the confidence of a prominent man just as much as I would that
of one who was less before the people. I remember very well my first
meeting with General W. T. Sherman. I would not mention it here if it
were not for the fact that the people seem to be yearning for personal
reminiscences of great men, and that is perfectly right, too.
It was since the war that I met General Sherman, and it was on the
line of the Union Pacific Railway, at one of those justly celebrated
eating-houses, which I understand are now abandoned. The colored waiter
had cut off a strip of the omelette with a pair of shears, the scorched
oatmeal had been passed around, the little rubber door mats fried in
butter and called pancakes had been dealt around the table, and the
cashier at the end of the hall had just gone through the clothes of a
party from Vermont, who claimed a rebate on the ground that the waiter
had refused to bring him anything but his bill. There was no sound in
the dining-room except the weak request of the coffee for more air and
stimulants, or perhaps the cry of pain when the butter, while practicing
with the dumb-bells, would hit a child on the head; then all would be
still again.
[Illustration: 0097]
General Sherman sat at one end of the table, throwing a life-preserver
to a fly in the milk pitcher.
We had never met before, though for years we had been plodding along
life's rugged way--he in the war department, I in the postoffice
department. Unknown to each other, we had been holding up opposite
corners of the great national fabric, if you will allow me that
expression.
I remember, as well as though it were but yesterday, how the
conversation began. General Sherman looked sternly at me and said:
"I wish you would overpower that butter and send it up this way."
"All right," said I, "if you will please pass those molasses."
That was all that was said, but I shall never forget it, and probably
he never will. The conversation was brief, but yet how full of food for
thought! How true, how earnest, how natural! Nothing stilted or false
about it. It was the natural expression of two minds that were too great
to be verbose or to monkey with social, conversational flapdoodle.
I remember, once, a great while ago, I was asked by a friend to go with
him in the evening to the house of an acquaintance, where they were
going to have a kind of musicale, at which there was to be some noted
pianist, who had kindly consented to play a few strains. I did not get
the name of the professional, but I went, and when the first piece
was announced I saw that the light was very uncertain, so I kindly
volunteered to get a lamp from another room. I held that big lamp,
weighing about twenty-nine pounds, for half an hour, while the pianist
would tinky tinky up on the right hand, or bang, boomy to bang down on
the bass, while he snorted and slugged that old concert grand piano and
almost knocked its teeth down its throat, or gently dawdled with the
keys like a pale moonbeam shimmering through the bleached rafters of
a deceased horse, until at last there was a wild jangle, such as the
accomplished musician gives to an instrument to show the audience that
he has disabled the piano, and will take a slight intermission while it
is sent to the junk shop.
With a sigh of relief I carefully put down the twenty-nine pound lamp,
and my friend told me that I had been standing there like liberty
enlightening the world, and holding that heavy lamp for Blind Tom.
*****
I had never seen him before, and I slipped out of the room before he had
a chance to see me.